Strategy Articles!

[Fyron]

Stone Mill, you think too much in the short term. Of course they are less efficent immediately. That is where the balancing comes in. But in large epic games, going with Monoliths is pretty much always a better idea. Such games often have long periods of peace, and those periods are good for getting Monoliths going. Compare Monolith III with Miner III, 2700 (or 1800 of one resource with converter Is) to 1000 resources. In the long term, Monoliths really pay off.

I never advocated Monoliths in small games or in the early game, btw.

And naturally, Monoliths go hand in hand with Resource Converters.

And yes, Monolith I and II are not very useful, which is why I never build them.

Also, SY III + HI + 120 const. apt. gets Monoliths in 3 turns on low pop worlds, and in 2 turns on high pop worlds. Take Organic, and you can make all planets high pop worlds (well, large and huge ones, at any rate) in no time. Temporal is not the only way to get fast construction rates.

[Ruatha]

I'll have to side with Fyron on this one. In PBW games with 20 players I try to get monoliths early.
I do build M1 and M2 though, mainly to stake in those slots and to get fast upgrades to M3 later.
In late games I really use alot of Rads and organics too as I put atmosphere converters on 100+ planets in NGC2 and also built some Null-space weapons. PPB's are the base weapon in my fleet.
In networks I've converted alot (not 100 though) planets, those atm converters cost alot!
Mineral shortage is something I seldom experiance but early in the game I can get a lack of orgs and rads.
Even though they take time to build, I do them on my ringworlds aswell, the ringworlds will never be completed before the game finishes but my income will continue to rise along with my fleet size.

[ June 14, 2003, 12:08: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Stone Mill,

Excellent piece, lots of interesting stuff.

The only thing I was surprised by was your (and others) negative view of Remote Mining.

While I'd never remote mine a planet - unless future colonisation was completely impossible - I find asteroids very useful, especially because of their very high resource percentages.

One can build, relatively early in the game, a Light Cruiser with three mineral RM components that will cost around 1500 minerals in maintenance, and mine around 6000 minerals on a 200%+ asteroid. Something that takes 4-5 turns to build and returns an income of 4500 a turn is as good an investment as a mineral mine (unless you're thinking very long term when the degradation of the asteroid mineral percentage becomes an issue).

And a key benefit, which no one has yet mentioned, is that asteroid mining is (obviously) not prone to rioting. So it's a guarranteed source of income even during a major war when you're suffering damage.

This saved my neck in a very recent game, when a large number of my planets had been glassed, and two thirds or more of the rest were rioting. My asteroid mining income kept my fleet alive and the empire operating.

[Stone Mill]

Ruatha, good catches, my friend. Edited, save for:

If you have a surplus in your resource income/expense, the total cost of the retrofits must be compared to the storage AND predicted income the next turn.
You can retrofit with a storage of 0 if you have a turn result of enough positive resources next turn.

I don't believe this is true. In my experience, it does not matter how big your income is, retrofits do come from only stored resources.

Am I incorrect? Can anyone assist to verify this?

[Ruatha]

Ok, I was quite certain but I'll await confirmation.. I have been wrong several times in the past

[Slick]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
Ruatha, good catches, my friend. Edited, save for:

quote:

---

If you have a surplus in your resource income/expense, the total cost of the retrofits must be compared to the storage AND predicted income the next turn.
You can retrofit with a storage of 0 if you have a turn result of enough positive resources next turn.

I don't believe this is true. In my experience, it does not matter how big your income is, retrofits do come from only stored resources.

Am I incorrect? Can anyone assist to verify this?

---

Stone Mill: You are correct (sorry, Ruatha ). You need resources for retrofits in the bank and can't rely on income because the cost of retrofits comes out of your storage before income goes in. If there is not enough in storage, the retrofit fails.

Also, I agree with you 100% on the monolith issue. Anyone who has run the numbers can see that monoliths pay back waaaay too far in the future in most cases. I also do use monoliths when it is a good idea, especially when you have a planet with high resources in all 3 areas it does make sense - if this planet is large or huge, it may not be.

If anyone wants to prove it to themselves, just do a few case studies and add up the net resources over time:

- make sure you subtract the resources you spend on the facilities you build and add in the resources the facility makes on the turn after it is built. Do this for every turn and you will find that building monoliths will create a large resource deficit for many turns - is your other income able to absorb this and still be competetive?,
- make sure you account for the time it takes to build the facilities,
- you can include a resource converter in the end if you wish, but this really benefits both sides of the argument,
- if you build a spaceyard before building facilities to speed up build time, include the resources and time to build it as well as the increased facility construction rate,
- if you build value improvement plants, include the resources and time to build and the time to increase resource percentages,
- use real game probabilities for planet rescource percentages. It is much easier to find a planet which is > 100% in one resource than to find one that is > 100% in all 3 resources.
- consider planet size. no matter what your build rate, it takes far longer to fill a large or huge planet with monoliths than individual resource facilities.
- since monoliths I, II, III all cost the same, they all take the same time to build, but the lower level ones produce less. on a standard planet with standard construction rate (2000, 2000, 2000) a single resource facility level II can be built in 1 turn with no spaceyard. When the Last one is built, they all can be upgraded to level III's. This method will fill a planet the quickest and the extra cost for upgrading is made up by having the level II facilites built in 1 turn instead of 2 turns for a level III so you have the income sooner.
- finally compare both schemes and see how low your rescource deficits get while building (this will surprise the monolith builders) and how many turns out it takes before a monolith planet exceeds a single resource planet. There is no doubt that a monolith system will eventually outproduce single resource facilities. The real question is at what point and what happens in the meantime? You will find that this time is very long (too many variables to put a discrete number here), but try some case studies yourself and you can see that it will be many many turns. And in the meantime, your enemies are coming...

[edit: p.s. let me know when you are done tweaking 17.3 for incorporation into the FAQ.]

Slick.

[ June 14, 2003, 19:02: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Ruatha]

Live and learn!

Slick, I guess you'll be hearing from Fyron about this
The monolith economy is very close to his heart I belive!

I just like to see those shiny high tech facilities, not spewing enviromental waste as those mineral mines are doing!